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I’ve never been a huge Joss Whedon fan. Avengers was great, but before I got together with my girlfriend (late 2010), the only show of his I had ever watched with any kind of regularity was Angel. When we started dating, I introduced her to Mad Men and some other shows. Well, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was on her list. I admittedly enjoyed it as well, but I never saw any of these vaunted feminist ideals people kept talking about. It had a female lead who could kick ass, but that’s about it. Whedon used sex to sell the thing time and time again as well. He wasn’t showrunner the year they had the almost-rape, but I’m sure he could have stopped that. So all this press Buffy gets for being feminist or transformative is kind of a joke to me (and to the nutters at The Mary Sue, it turns out). I tend to think that the main one responsible for the line of thought is Joss Whedon himself. The media, being the lapdogs that they are, willing eat that shit up.

Today, an interview he did with Devin Faraci was released, which is great, because I was already writing about the fucker when it came out. Whedon talked about GamerGate, and his recent critique of Jurassic World (which was way out of line…btw, BadassFatass Dumbass Digest owner Faraci is in orange):

You’re one of the few people willing to engage that. You’re releasing a billion dollar movie, which means you need to appeal to the widest audience as possible, but you’re also being vocal in your beliefs. A lot of people in your position are not. This week you came out and criticized Jurassic World’s clip – which I thought was terrific of you – which is maybe not the politically expedient way to approach it.

You know, I honestly think that was bad form. I literally forgot that I don’t do that. I literally just went… I was so shocked! Honestly, I was shocked! Like a dowager – “Oh, good lawd!”

I don’t think I should have tweeted about that movie; there are plenty of other things that bother and offend me in movies and I usually don’t tweet about them unless the movie is old, long over, I don’t want to be knocking ‘The Other Guy.’ I don’t want to set myself up as the arbiter of awesome…But as a quasi-celebrity it’s uncouth of me to attack somebody else’s material.

At least he admits his attack on a direct competitor’s film was a mistake. Here’s the tweet they’re referring to, in case you missed it:

https://twitter.com/josswhedon/status/586422567205912576

But what did he have to say about GamerGate?

Comic book fans, video game fans, have traditionally been subcultures that have been very edgy. They’re like secret societies almost. Obviously the majority of people are not like that, but I think that’s always the way with sports or other things I know nothing about.

MAYBE somebody believes GamerGate actually has ANYTHING to do with ethics in gaming journalism – maybe they somehow believe that – but there’s not even really time to really express that. You’re for or you’re against us. I don’t know the way out of that. There’s also the anonymity, which is letting us express primal rage.

Plenty of people believe it’s about ethics in gaming journalism, and it’s for a very good reason: it actually is. That’s not the only thing it’s about, and I’ve always been very consistent in saying that. But it’s our unifying purpose. Not everyone is as gung-ho as I am about fighting the radical feminists, but every single GamerGate supporter is for a more ethical gaming press. So Whedon is way off base yet again. Not surprising coming from a dishonest shill like him.

Adam has always been a very conservative Libertarian, and he’s always been a very sweet and grateful and hard working actor, and that’s the guy I like to think about, not the guy who is calling me and Felicia Day out on Twitter because some obnoxious person is on our side and saying, ‘This proves…’ something. I don’t understand.

But he’s such a good guy, so to see that lack of connection with the reality that people are being really, really hurt, really damaged by what these people represent, it saddens me.

“He’s a great guy, but he’s totally disconnected from reality.” OK, Joss, if you say so. I doubt Baldwin will get too worked up about the comments, and to be fair, he did qualify the criticism with some praise. But c’mon. That was just about as uncouth as his Jurassic World tweet.

Also, how can you even do an interview with Devin Faraci in the first place? Here’s an excerpt from my September piece:

The owner of “Badass” Digest, is the type of guy who would harass 30+ year old virgins on National Suicide Awareness Day, and then laugh about it with his hipster douchebag buddies.

[Faraci’s] the type of person who writes a piece at the beginning of GamerGate talking about humility, and how he used to be bullied, then engage in some of the most offensive behavior we’ve seen from the haters. He’s like the male Leigh Alexander, except maybe worse. At least Leigh didn’t try to get people to off themselves on suicide prevention day.

So that’s the kind of guy you just associated with, Whedon. Yet GamerGate supporters are the bad guys? Give me a fucking break.

Update: I’ll keep updating this post as more stuff comes in from Twitter and elsewhere.